Features

Nome SAR looks for overdue snowmachiners

Fri, 03/01/2019 - 7:19pmadmin

By:

Diana Haecker

Nome Volunteer Fire Department Search and Rescue was alerted on Monday of two overdue snowmachiners who set out to travel from Teller to Nome on Monday, Feb. 25 at noon and were not seen since.
NVFD Chief Jim West Jr. said that Rex Iyatunguk, 37, and David Miller, 38, left on one blue 550 Polaris Sport snowmachine. As of press time on Tuesday evening, they have not been found.
Teller SAR and Nome SAR sent a hasty team to look for the travelers. Three volunteers with Nome SAR, Dale Ellanna, Brandon Tran and Daniel Stang struck out from Nome on their snowmachines to look for the overdue travelers.
Weather was windy and snowing. West said they managed to get to 10-mile hill outside of Teller without seeing any sign of Iyatunguk or Miller. They met up with Teller SAR who set out with two searchers, but came home empty-handed as well.
Nome searchers stopped at Wooley Lagoon cabins and other subsistence cabins along the coast, but did not find the travelers.
They found a black and white Polaris snowmachine on the Nome-Teller highway, but not the one that family members described.
The searchers returned to Nome on Tuesday afternoon.